The Technological Understanding of Being

M Wrathall: One of the dangers of technology is that it relieves us of the burden of having to develop skills. Technology is always sold as a labour saving device. When you buy the latest technology for cooking, the promise is that you can cook as well as a master without any of the skills the master has and that goes for everything, with music as well. So, all of us now today, can enjoy music of a quality unimaginable to most people in the history of the world, in the comfort of our homes, with very little cost and very little effort. That’s a great promise! Who would give up on that pleasure of hearing music in that way? But the danger is that we give in to the seductions of technology to the degree that we lose all of these skills.

I Thomson: The internet is actually a much better example because what the internet is doing is: it’s basically transforming all reality into information.

H Dreyfus: Everything on the internet is equal. You can have the most important information right next door to the most trivial; you can find out on Twitter what your friends had for breakfast and you can find out also that there were 100 people killed in Iraq that day. With Google you can find anything and you can go on Wikipedia and you can get any facts about anything and that is in certain ways terrific if you just use it for something relevant. But if you think that’s just the best thing in the world, just to have more and more information, more and more transformable stuff, more and more applications for your iPhone, that make it able to do more and more things and that’s just what it is all about, everything gets levelled; there’s no meaningful differences any more between what’s important and not important, what’s trivial and what’s crucial, what’s relevant and irrelevant; it’s all reduced to just more information.

C Taylor: If you want to really be efficient, you really don’t want this kind of, you know, interference – “Hey this is Sunday or this is Christmas” or something – you just can’t stop that or “This is the middle of night, what do you think you are doing?” No! ’24 X 7′ is one of the great great achievements of our civilisation. Things, some things, go on all the time, are available all the time. And it is very handy! You know, three o’clock in the morning, I can rush to my computer and I can google and nobody is going to say to me on the screen “This is not available, this page is not available because you are supposed to be sleeping”. No, they are going to give it me. So it’s absolutely great. I benefit from it myself but you can see what this is doing. What it is doing is that it is making us look at time as something that is infinitely usable and extensible – it doesn’t matter when it is I can access, right? – as against being forced back into understanding that there are times that are just different, that have a different quality. It’s not appropriate to use them in this way.

M Wrathall: And it is true that is changes us. So we have to become the kind of people who are satisfied with the sort of commodities that are delivered to us. You can imagine people who really are connoisseurs of jazz music, who really understand that one of the great things about jazz music is the way the musicians are responding to the performance hall, and the audience, and the particular musicians that are there, and the weather and whatever accidents that are happening. The jazz musicians are incorporating it into their performance.

J Smith: Responding to the other musicians is one of the most important things.

R Cross: In playing together, you will hear that in the music; where the piano plays something, the bass will react, the drums are playing and the trumpet will jump in. You are interacting with everything. Everything is part of what you are trying to get to. Anything can change what’s happening. A cell phone goes off and all of a sudden, it is like “Oh”, you know, Cat might make fun of it on the piano or even on the trumpet or whatever it is and it all becomes part of the performance.

M Wrathall: And you as a listener, are a skilful listener and have the bodily dispositions to pick up on that, you would never be satisfied by listening to a recorded jazz performance on CD because that’s not the performance that would be optimal for your bedroom or living room. But technology also makes the sort of flexible people who are satisfied with a sort of cheap imitation of all the goods that deeply skilful practices deliver.

- Being in the World (imdb)

The Artist of Kouroo

There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful? – Conclusion, Walden; Life in the Woods

Heaven: Gold and Precious Stones

18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.

19 And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;

20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

Revelation 21

Sanctum Sanctorum

By all kinds of traps and sign-boards, threatening the extreme penalty of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground which can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,—its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; and if you would know what will make the most durable pavement, surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatment so long.

If we have thus desecrated ourselves,—as who has not?—the remedy will be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once more a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. – Life without principle

The Bellwether

Data was obtained from Infosys Annual Reports. All figures are Indian GAAP. Usual disclaimers apply.

A Panacea

The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then, to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. – T. H. White (source)

The Power of Instruction

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous. – Edward Gibbons, Chapter 4, The History of the Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire

A Supercritical Mind

Let us return for a moment to Lady Lovelace’s objection, which stated that the machine can only do what we tell it to do. One could say that a man can “inject” an idea into the machine, and that it will respond to a certain extent and then drop into quiescence, like a piano string struck by a hammer. Another simile would be an atomic pile of less than critical size: an injected idea is to correspond to a neutron entering the pile from without. Each such neutron will cause a certain disturbance which eventually dies away. If, however, the size of the pile is sufficiently increased, the disturbance caused by such an incoming neutron will very likely go on and on increasing until the whole pile is destroyed. Is there a corresponding phenomenon for minds, and is there one for machines? There does seem to be one for the human mind. The majority of them seem to be “subcritical,” i.e., to correspond in this analogy to piles of subcritical size. An idea presented to such a mind will on average give rise to less than one idea in reply. A smallish proportion are supercritical. An idea presented to such a mind that may give rise to a whole “theory” consisting of secondary, tertiary and more remote ideas. Animals minds seem to be very definitely subcritical. Adhering to this analogy we ask, “Can a machine be made to be supercritical?” – Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Buxton Index

My third remark introduces you to the Buxton Index, so named after its inventor, Professor John Buxton, at the time at Warwick University. The Buxton Index of an entity, i.e. person or organization, is defined as the length of the period, measured in years, over which the entity makes its plans. For the little grocery shop around the corner it is about 1/2, for the true Christian it is infinity, and for most other entities it is in between: about 4 for the average politician who aims at his re-election, slightly more for most industries, but much less for the managers who have to write quarterly reports. The Buxton Index is an important concept because close co-operation between entities with very different Buxton Indicies invariably fails and leads to moral complaints about the partner. The party with the smaller Buxton Index is accused of being superficial and short-sighted, while the party with the larger Buxton Index is accused of neglect of duty, of backing out of its responsibility, of freewheeling, etc.. In addition, each party accuses the other one of being stupid. The great advantage of the Buxton Index is that, as a simple numerical notion, it is morally neutral and lifts the difference above the plane of moral concerns. The Buxton Index is important to bear in mind when considering academic/industrial co-operation. – Edsger Dijkstra, The Strengths of the Academic Enterprise (EWD 1175)

Marriage Vows

“Are you sure that you want to marry her given the possibility that she might be diagnosed with cancer tomorrow (the day after the wedding) and you might have to give up your career and probably all your dreams to take care of her?”

“Are you sure that you want to marry him given the possibility that his Alzheimer’s might surface tomorrow (the day after wedding) and completely forget who you are. Will you still love him and take care of him?”